January 17, 2020 · 7:30 AM
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About Anger In Adult Children Of Narcissistic Parents

 

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Filed under Abuse and the Healing Journey, Christian Topics and Prayers, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mental Health

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10 responses to “About Anger In Adult Children Of Narcissistic Parents”

  1. dougrross
    January 17, 2020 at 8:33 AM

    Great video as always! For me, it is tough to “feel my feels” because, as you mentioned, my narcissistic parents trained me that I wasn’t allowed to express any “feels”.

    I want to share one tool I’ve discovered recently to help me identify my emotions is Richard Grannon’s Instagram page:
    https://www.instagram.com/richardgrannon/

    If you scroll down, you can see flash cards with emotions. If you click on your emotion, you can then click the arrows on the right which offers exercises that may help.

    For example, I clicked “Anger”, and after a few more clicks, he suggests that Anger may be a drive to protect from Threats. He suggests taking action steps to create Safety as being something you can “do” to help.

    This may be a male/female thing where men are not as in touch with their “feels”, and want to jump to the Action Steps. But I appreciate his efforts to create this sort of tool. (He wants to create an app for it)

    (An aside, while I really appreciate these flash cards, I find Richard Grannon’s videos overall rambling.)

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    • CynthiaBaileyRug
      January 17, 2020 at 8:57 AM

      Thank you.. you’re always so kind & complementary!

      It is hard to express “feels” & thank you so much narcissistic parents for that. UGH!

      The flash cards are a cool idea! I glanced at the link you sent but will check it out more thoroughly. Thank you so much for sharing! Hopefully he does create the app.. that’d be awesome. The flash cards remind me of the wheel of emotions. Have you seen that? I’ll put the link below. It’s really helpful when you can’t identify your emotions.

      https://themighty.com/2018/11/i-feel-nothing-wheel-of-emotions/

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      • dougrross
        January 17, 2020 at 9:29 AM

        This wheel seems amazing for identifying emotions. But I’m not seeing any resolution steps.

        When I was in therapy in the 90s, my therapist would make me ask myself if I was “mad, sad, glad or afraid”. (Glad seems stupid imho)

        But then he never really offered answers to how I could fix it. yanno?

        Like, I wish he would have told me,
        “You can now recognize mad, sad, and afraid”
        And realize you are enough now. You don’t have to worry about “mad, sad and afraid” anymore because you can take care of yourself now.

        But I guess therapists would be out of a job if they did that.

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        • CynthiaBaileyRug
          January 17, 2020 at 10:04 AM

          That is true. It’s super helpful for identifying emotions. Resolving them is another story.

          I guess they would be. Ugh. It’s a pity more therapists don’t give suggestions on how to deal with emotions. I remember that frustration from when I was in therapy when I was 17. I felt “Ok, we know I feel . That’s great. Now what?! How am I supposed to deal with it?” I ended up figuring out what I needed to do myself without any help. (Not perfectly by any stretch, but quite a bit) Partly why I’ve avoided therapy for so long even though ideally, I’d like to get into it.

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          • dougrross
            January 17, 2020 at 10:13 AM

            Yes! I remember liking Julia Cameron, and her book The Artist’s Way because she said to channel your anger into creative pursuits.

            But now that I look back – I realize that my goals where just to make myself feel safe. Not to create “art”

            For me now, I just want to create a world where I feel safe.

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  2. annealcroft
    January 18, 2020 at 8:59 PM

    By the grace of God we survive narcissistic abuse whether it be parental, by siblings, a spouse, and so on.

    In the aftermath, as we realize we are in the process of healing, it can take many years to know ourselves well enough to recognize our own Truth, and to speak that, which often takes sufficient anger to get us to that point.

    There can be days, even weeks on end, if not months, when the reality of the effects of the trauma, heartbreak, and burnout narcissistic abuse has caused, the irreparable damage and time taken from our ability to live a happy, healthy, productive, and prosperous life, can only be remedied and succored when we realize it has been a blessing because it has brought us to God.

    Some of us may live our lives grasping each day, in prayer and gratitude for our suffering, for the light at the end of the tunnel, always keeping some glimpse of hope before us that someday our prayer for deliverance will be answered. “Only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” Jesus, I trust in You. Amen.

    Thank you, Cynthia, for all of your generosity and dedication to this very important cause. Our world needs to become more aware of how dangerous narcissism is. We should be able to recognize it everywhere, especially from leaders in high places who, rather than humble themselves, will go to any extreme to exonerate themselves, no matter the cost even to the dignity of our nation.

    Prayer is a very important tool for us, if not the only one. You mention this often, Cynthia, and this is a real gift to your readers.

    Blessings!

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    • CynthiaBaileyRug
      January 24, 2020 at 4:24 PM

      Anne, I have to apologize! I just saw your comment somehow ended up in the spam folder! I don’t check it that often since 99.99999% of those comments are actual spam. So sorry yours almost got lost in those silly comments!

      You certainly described recovery from narcissistic abuse well! I can’t add anything to it! Thank God for helping us get through it all… on our own, it’d be impossible.

      Thank you for your kind words!! I truly appreciate what you said! ❤

      Yes, there needs to be much more awareness of NPD & the terrible dangers it presents! People also need to know it's everywhere, in every culture, profession, religion, country, workplace… there isn't any escape from it, so it's best to be aware of what to watch out for.

      Thank you again! I mention prayer often because I know in the midst of it all, it can be hard to remember to pray. I've been a Christian since 1996 & much as I hate to admit it, there have been many times in the midst of the abuse or when the C-PTSD flares up, I didn't think of prayer. I hope by reminding people to pray it'll help them not to do as I have done & maybe remind myself, too.

      Bless you!

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  3. annealcroft
    January 26, 2020 at 11:03 PM

    Cynthia, it is so difficult to bring ourselves to prayer when we’re in the throes of a trigger and/or PTSD flare up. I feel humiliated before God at such times, mostly because it has taken me so long to believe that God truly loves me.

    Part of the agenda of the narcissistic abuser is to make us feel worthless. When we feel as though our head is being held under water, it is very difficult to pray other than to plead for God’s mercy to relieve us of our sufferings, which is enough but doesn’t seem so at the time.

    I don’t think it is possible to begin to heal from the ravages of narcissistic abuse unless we can relate to our Christ crucified on His cross and understand that though we are sinners and He never sinned, we can feel the sorrow for the sins of our abusers just as He teaches us.

    Recently I saw cousins I’ve been estranged from for several years largely because my narcissist father spread slander about me that they believed. I vowed I was not going to talk about my father at all but lo and behold, if the floodgates didn’t open and I told them as much as I possibly could to expose his wicked ways. They were understanding and compassionate, but later one cousin made a snide remark about my getting “free therapy.” Though being humbled is a virtue, I felt that she was questioning my integrity a few times which made me think about feeling safe enough around people to be able to tell our stories. I didn’t bother to rebuke her, but I’ve been praying about that ever since and am sure God will help her to see the Light.

    The narcissist exploits his victim and then talks about them to others, twisting a story to cover his abuses and lies. We, the victims of the narcissist and yes we are victims, no matter how hard some try to whitewash that reality, have a desperate need to expose the truth and bring to light the exact nature of our perpetrators. Why?

    Because where there are lies and secrets, there is no love. Truth is love, which is why Christians love Jesus Christ. His whole life on earth was about teaching us the Truth and how to live by his courageous example. Being meek does not mean being nice. It means turning the other cheek when we are insulted, but it does not mean making ourselves into fodder so that a narcissist can lie, commit adultery, embezzle our inheritance, and spit in the face of our Savior while pretending to be Christian. We must stand up for the Truth because we know that is what will set us free.

    Another thing about the narcissist is that he would rather die than humble himself. Though most often the narcissist has also been the victim of abuse, their is an inherent wickedness in their hearts fueled by avarice, lust, a need to control, manipulate, cheat, and a sadistic pleasure they find in willfully hurting others. Their sense of entitlement blinds them of their ability to reason or exercise conscience. Someone once said there is no greater punishment than when God stops stirring the conscience. Such is the case with the narcissist.

    Meanwhile, here we are, picking ourselves up and brushing the dust off after we’ve gone through another episode that I often wonder may not be similar to a form of epilepsy. Each time I find myself going through one of these throes, as I call them, I get refer to a little book called “The Manual For Spiritual Warfare” because I realize that when dealing with the narcissist, we are dealing with the diabolical. This little book I highly recommend to anyone navigating the raging seas of narcissistic attack.

    Someone here mentioned creativity and work as an artist. There is nothing more heartbreaking for those of us with creative faculties, especially when we pray to “prosper the work of our hands” as Saint Paul preaches, to be paralyzed by PTSD and the abuses of our past. So often I wonder what it is ever going to take to snap out of this stupor, this paralysis. It seems to me that the only way we are able to free ourselves is to abide by the teachings of Christ, and to leave all behind us, whatever it takes, to find the courage to follow Him and Him alone.

    If it means giving up our inheritance, selling our home, moving, or just asking God, praying without ceasing, to be assured that He knows what things we have need of before we ask of Him.

    It’s so valuable to have this space to be able to share our stories and to transform our challenges into blessings.

    Thank you so much, Cynthia. God bless you and all veterans as we work out our salvation.

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